


Broadback

by KyloReam



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (at least I think it qualifies), Anxiety, Bacta Tanks, Classic Kylux, M/M, Smoking, Soft Kylux, a lot of callbacks to kylux fandom tropes from the last two years, at this point it is probably not canon compliant but I — DON’T — CARE, brief descriptions of medical gore, catching feelings, early 2016 style kylux, hux vapes, original Stormtrooper character, sorry I got a bit sentimental on this, the snow rescue scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 13:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13032303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyloReam/pseuds/KyloReam
Summary: Armitage watches Ren because there’s nowhere else for him to go, because Leader Snoke instructed him to bring Ren and he must guarantee his apprentice reaches a stable condition. He sits down next to the medtable and focuses on Ren’s eyes because it keeps his mind off the breaches in security on Starkiller, the magnitude of lives lost and technology that’s been wiped out in a single day. He listens to Ren’s ragged breathing because it distracts him from the fact that he never heard from Captain Phasma before the evacuation and has no idea where she is, let alone if she was able to get off the base. Armitage watches Ren because focusing on him distracts him from worries of his own mortality.Armitage tells himself these things because he knows he will ask himself, hours or days or months later, why he stayed.(Or, the last non-canon compliant "snow rescue" fic before I see The Last Jedi)





	Broadback

**Author's Note:**

> Me in January 2016: ugh everyone’s writing kylux fics where they get together for the first time when General (Brendol) Hux finds Kylo Ren in the snow hOW TRITE  
> Me in December 2017: *in a panic* I MUST WRITE A FIC AROUDN THE HYPOTHETICAL SNOW RESCUE SCENE BEFORE IT DOESN”T HAPPEN IN TLJ
> 
> I realize I’m submitting this fic after TLJ’s come out. It was five minutes to midnight five days ago, and the clock’s passed midnight now….but I still haven’t been affected by the blast.
> 
> Here’s to the fandom friends I’ve made, especially voidrot, angry_android, cormallen, saltandlimes, kylocatastrophe, tarkinducken, iggylikespie, crowlicious, and ninekindsofkylux — you’re all incredibly talented, thoughtful, goodhearted people and I love you. And here’s to the fic writers, meta writers, artists, cosplayers, photo-editors, and enthusiastic fans whose work has been part of my daily life for the last two years. You’ve made me smile, made me cry, and sparked my interest in writing or running yards upon yards of fabric through a sewing machine. I’ve never participated in a fandom to the extent of this one, and it’s an experience I don’t take lightly. 
> 
> Fic title and inspiration: “Broadback” by Baths. It’s funny, the first kylux fic I published was based on a song by Baths, and here I am again, two years later.

General Armitage Hux looks down at the body of Kylo Ren, the man he’s worked beside, bickered with, and begrudgingly envied since taking up his post five years ago. Ren, the First Order’s greatest weapon, the most powerful Force user of his generation, the Jedi Killer, the Supreme Leader’s attack dog. Ren has always been more myth than fact.

Now he lays crumpled and bleeding in the snow, pale, inelegant, human.

Armitage’s fingers scrabble against his palms and the heavy weight of dread tightens around him. His eyes sting; he tells himself it’s the cold, or else it’s the smoke. He bites his lip, takes a deep breath. He’s seized with the urge to sink into the snow and cradle Ren to his chest. If he were a stronger man, he could carry him. Distantly, he’s aware of the sound of distant tremors on Starkiller.

“Ren.”

The name hangs in the air like a dagger. Ren’s eyes blink up at Armitage as he mouthes something that gets muffled over the sounds of trees cracking and the ground splitting as Starkiller destroys itself. And then there’s a roar from Ren’s shuttle — Armitage seized it once he knew evacuation was imminent. It’s one of the few light spacecraft with an onboard bacta tank.

Armitage glances behind him to the Stormtroopers and Medtroopers he’s brought. “Place Commander Ren on a medtable and load him into the shuttle,” he says as calmly as he can, as though the planet isn’t on the verge of collapse and as though Ren’s life isn’t in imminent danger. “He’s sustained injuries to his

“Sir? You should board the shuttle immediately." It’s one of the Medtroopers, WP-1177.

“I can assist you, Lev,” Armitage hears himself say, and it’s to Lev’s credit that he doesn’t even flinch at the informal nickname, but simply gestures for him to join the troopers.

He hoists Ren up from beneath his arms, and it’s like hauling dead weight. It takes the entire rescue team to get him onto the medtable. Armitage allows his fingers to trail for a moment through Ren’s hair — the words I’m sorry, in Ren’s voice, echo through his head. He grips onto the table, exhales loudly. There’s probably blood on his hands and on the sleeves of his coat. Armitage doesn’t care.

No sooner have they gotten Ren inside that the ground buckles beneath them, and were it not for the team of soldiers Ren would’ve been thrown across the shuttle. Armtiage swears and barks a command at the pilot he’s recruited to fly Ren’s shuttle to _get off this carking planet_ before it implodes, works with the Stormtroopers to hastily secure Ren in place. His com link is beeping frantically and in a fit of — rage, frustration, fear? — Armitage removes it from his belt and throws it against the shuttle wall.

They barely make the jump into hyperspeed when it happens. Armitage doesn’t see Starkiller collapse into itself, but he feels the tremors, can imagine the heat radiating off of it. He tries not to think about the soldiers and officers who weren’t able to evacuate. He tries not to think about his life’s work going up in flames. Armitage is aware that he’s shaking; he fumbles into his coat pocket for a cig pen and inhales. He turns his attention to Ren.

Armitage watches Ren because there’s nowhere else for him to go, because Leader Snoke instructed him to bring Ren and he must guarantee his apprentice reaches a stable condition. He sits down next to the medtable and focuses on Ren’s eyes because it keeps his mind off the breaches in security on Starkiller, the magnitude of lives lost and technology that’s been wiped out in a single day. He listens to Ren’s ragged breathing because it distracts him from the fact that he never heard from Captain Phasma before the evacuation and has no idea where she is, let alone if she was able to get off the base. Armitage watches Ren because focusing on him distracts him from worries of his own mortality.

Armitage tells himself these things because he knows he will ask himself, hours or days or months later, why he stayed.

Ren whines pitifully from behind a respirator, his eyes focused at the shuttle ceiling as the medtroopers attend to him. Armitage fidgets with his gloves, exhales vapor from his cig pen. He’s not looking at Ren but he can still feel him pressing at his consciousness, the mental touch as real as fingers tapping. _Don’t_ , he thinks, furrowing his brow, and yet he still stands up, walks over to the medtable.

A surgical droid equipped with a blade cuts through Ren’s clothing. It feels as though it takes an eternity. There’s his tabard (quilted, seemingly more heavy-weight than the one Ren usually wears), his leather pants and gloves and boots, his tunic, the strange cropped shirt he wears beneath the tunic. A piece of Ren’s tunic flutters from the medtable and Armitage picks it up, his fingers tracing the waxed-looking pleated fabric. It’s stiff and plasticky, weighty in a way which always catches Armitage off guard. There’s so much literal weight that Ren carries across his back.

The bowcaster wound is the worst: Ren’s entire left side is swollen and bloody, the skin torn jagged. Even with the medical team treating the wound and flushing out toxins, Armitage can see that the projectile went deep into Ren’s gut. He notes how Ren’s face and shoulder are also inflamed, an injury he’s told is from lightsaber plasma, and there’s another deep cut on his thigh. He expects to feel disgusted, but doesn’t expect the additional feeling of guilt, that he could have somehow prevented this.

With Ren stripped bare, Armitage is reminded again of the first time they met. Ren was presented as a supernatural and physical force, the key to the First Order uniting the galaxy. He’s seen him accumulate the scars over the last five years, each a marker for some battle. There are blaster bolt scars, vibroblade gashes, bumpy keloid scars from primitive sutures. There's a sigil tattooed onto Ren’s solar plexus as part of a dark side ritual, the lightning-like after burns of Force lightning from when the Supreme Leader pushed Ren to the brink of training.

There’s no good reason for Armitage to watch Ren as he’s slowly lowered into the onboard bacta tank. It’s a vertical model designed to be used without external help. Armitage used a bacta tank exactly once in his life; he hates the claustrophobia that came with it, the sense that he could drown should the tank malfunction, and yet Ren places himself into a watery coffin each time he’s injured. He’ll remain in the tank until they reach the Supreme Leader.

The tank is spare, even by First Order standards, but Armitage knows the technology on it is sound. He doubts anyone outside of Kylo Ren himself knows Armitage paid for it himself with credits saved over the course of months. If it had come to light, he knows he’d say it was because Ren was too strong of an asset to die.

_That’s one way to describe me._

Armitage starts. He looks down at Ren in the bacta tank, confused for a moment of how his voice got into his mind, before he realizes he’s lingered by the edge of the tank, his hand pressed to the transparisteel window, Ren’s hand resting on the opposite side. _I thought you were critically injured. And on tranquilizers. You need rest._

Armitage, I’m sorry. Ren’s mental voice sounds penitent in a way he rarely does in public or private. I didn’t mean for things to turn out this way.

Armitage pulls his hand away as a wave of adrenaline fueled fury. Ren’s upset? Ren, who went after a girl who was strong in the Force when simply tracking a droid would do? Ren, who killed his own father, if reports are to be believed, at a time when Starkiller was under attack? Ren, who will likely make it out of their next meeting with the Supreme Leader with nothing more than a stern conversation and a zap of Force lightning?

At that thought, Armitage pauses.

Ren shouldn’t have to be physically punished. He’s held back attacks for the Supreme Leader and the First Order time and again, displaying more bravery and dauntlessness than even the most devoted heroes. His thoughts on Ren hold more nuance now than they did five years ago. He sighs, places his hand back on the glass. Apology accepted.

_What happens now?_

_We go to the Supreme Leader._ Armitage doesn’t want to think of what happens beyond that.

_You’re scared._

_Of course I am, he’s likely going to send us to our deaths._

Ren doesn’t respond for a while, but Armitage can feel, through their weak connection, the unease and dread that have settled around him. Snoke is wise, he counters weakly. That wouldn’t happen. He doesn’t respond for a while, and Armitage wonders if perhaps the drugs are taking effect. He’s about to leave when —

_Armie?_

And now his heart beats faster, and Armitage has to duck his head down squeeze his eyes shut to keep the tears from coming. Ren — no, Kylo — has never called him that in public. It’s the names they use behind closed doors, the ones they’d use on nights they’d spend together. It’s compassion and gentleness and kindness and —

_Armie, I love you._

Armitage places his hand to the pane, wishes he could hold Kylo’s hand at least once before he’s carted off to the Supreme Leader. He wishes foolishly for more moments spent with him, that he’d been a better person to Kylo. Did they do enough? Does Kylo know he loves him?

_I do,_ Kylo says. When Armitage looks into the tank, he sees that Kylo’s brow is knit, his face contorting beneath his breathing mask.

_I love you, Kylo,_ says Armitage. Sleep now, please.

And while Kylo rests, Armitage recounts memories that he hopes will give Kylo comfort.

He recalls the time Kylo thought, for what felt like a standard month, that his name was Brendol, after his father. He reminds Kylo of the time when he went undercover on board Starkiller, how Armitage was surprised anyone would have been fooled by his paper-thin disguise. He thanks him for the kitten he gave as a peace offering, and the Hosnian Blue cig pen fluid and the Corellian brandy.

He retells the dreams Kylo used to share with him, the ones where they met in other universes or under different circumstances. The one where Kylo had followed in the footsteps of Padme Naberrie and the one where Armitage became emperor were fanciful, but were ones he still loved. Neither could happen, not in this lifetime. Perhaps in another one.

Armitage tells Kylo that he loves him, says it mentally and whispers it to the tank. He tells him he hopes they will both live, but if not, then he hopes Kylo will survive. He hopes he's done enough.

Eventually he sleeps.


End file.
